


Survivors

by GemmaRose



Series: SG Royalty AU [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Brotherhood, Comfort, Heart-to-Heart, M/M, Mech Preg, Past Child Abuse, SG Autobots should not raise sparklings, SG Overbee is my new fav crackship, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 09:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17936954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: Optronix is dead and gone, and Rodimus and Bumblebee have found peace and love and happy endings. At least, that's how it's supposed to be. But with Rodimus carrying, things are never going to be that simple.





	Survivors

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my buddies in the Death Bucket who helped with brainstorming this AU! Should I have been writing something else? _Definitely_. Do I regret writing this? Not a whit.

Bumblebee approached the building slowly, carefully, and from the alley, keeping an optic out for anyone who might be nearby. Just because his scans only showed himself, his quarry, and a flickering spark signature a few buildings down didn’t mean nobody had tailed him. He did one last scan, this time for unusual absences of atmospheric gasses in non-solid areas, and relaxed slightly as he approached the building. He scanned down the dirty, narrow space between it and its neighbour, and after a moment the programs running in his HUD highlighted three potential routes of entry. He deselected one immediately, no self-respecting autobot made a bolthole of an upper floor apartment. A moment later he deselected the second floor one as well. It was next to the fire escape, sure, but there was too much distance between it and the spark signature’s location. A bolthole without reliable exits was just a new place to be cornered in.

Approaching slowly, he stopped just outside the half-rusted sheet metal welded over a window to the building’s basement. According to his earlier scan, there should be plenty of room for him to land. An experimental tug proved the window-turned-hatch to be unlocked, and he scoffed quietly as he lowered himself inside. Sloppy. Optronix would’ve beat the paint from their plating if either of them had been so careless while he still functioned. He shook his head as he dropped the last little bit to the floor, landing silently in a crouch. The hatch swung shut behind him, a rubberized seal stopping it from clattering. And sure enough, there he sat, curled up against the far wall with his helm between his knees and a field so dark and thorny Bumblebee could feel it from here. His pedes were soundless against the floor, but he made no effort to mask his EM field as he walked up to his prey.

“Deadlock’s got half the royal guard looking for you, you know that?” he asked, taking out his favourite gun. Rodimus made a pitiful little sound, but didn’t so much as twitch. Bumblebee sighed heavily enough his vent covers rattled, and turned to fall against the wall next to his sorta-brother. “Don’t worry, none of them even tried to follow me.” he kept his optics on the gun in his hands, rummaging in his subspace a moment to fish out the little hard light projector he kept on hand for emergencies. It fit neatly on the floor between his crossed legs, projecting a flat plane just big enough to work on, and he set the gun down on it gently.

“It was... It was fragged up, wasn’t it.” he said softly, mechanically beginning the process of field stripping his weapon. Rodimus made a soft sound of confusion, his field softening some where it battered against Bumblebee’s. He wasn’t good at this, not the way Deadlock was. He was an autobot, a killer, that was what he was good at. False smiles and political niceties were easy enough, but when Rodimus hit this point... Bumblebee wished, more than anything, that Rodimus hadn’t come _here_. One of his other bolt holes, one of the disposable ones set up for a few mega-cycles at a stretch? That he could call Deadlock to, let Roddy’s conjunx deal with this mess. It was mostly his fault, after all. But this one, the one set up to support a mech for stellar cycles on end? If Rodimus let Overlord know where _his_ long-term bolt hole was, well, Bumblebee would probably never speak to him again.

So, that left him here, trying to comfort Rodimus without sending him into a worse state of panic. “Remember the day Optronix brought you in?” he asked, and Rodimus gave a shallow nod, though he didn’t uncurl. “I’d only been there a deca-cycle and a half, and I thought-” he chuckled, keeping his optics firmly on the weapon in his hands. “I thought he’d picked you up so I could have a friend. Then you _bit_ me-”

“You grabbed me first.” Rodimus muttered, the plating along his arms flaring and smoothing back down in ripples. “And you tasted awful.”

“I hadn’t earned a washrack token yet.” Bumblebee shrugged, tanks twisting at the memory. “Looking back, everything there was so fragged up. The way Optronix trained us, how young we were, having to _earn_ our own fuel and washrack tokens and medical visits...” Bumblebee sucked in a steadying vent, curling his hands around the bared frame of his gun to keep them from shaking. “It wasn’t right.”

Having the words come out of his vocaliser felt... strange. Overlord had told him as much more times than he cared to count, in the many, _many_ meta-cycles they spent failing at courting each other, but it was one thing to hear it and another to agree. “It wasn’t right, Rodimus.” he set a hand on Roddy’s shoulder, his dark hand stark against the crimson of Rodimus’s plating

“I know.” Rodimus sounded like he had to force the words through his vocaliser, the subglyphs all but dripping with grief and loathing. “But hey, that’s Autobots for ya.” he laughed bitterly, and Bumblebee could only nod and hum in agreement as he turned back to his gun.

They sat in silence for a few kliks, him thoroughly cleaning the parts of his weapon and Rodimus slowly uncurling from the tight ball of limbs he’d probably been in since he got here. “Primus below, we’re starting to sound like Decepticons.” he laughed softly, field gone flat with exhaustion, and Bumblebee grinned behind his facemask.

“Says the mech who’s forging one.” he teased, prodding Rodimus’s belly with the barrel extension of his gun.

Rodimus chuckled, this time even with some amusement in it, and rested a hand over his gestation tank. From what Bumblebee had pieced together after Deadlock came tearing into his office in a very loud panic, the wistful little smile on his brother’s face was a decided improvement over his earlier reaction to the realization he was going to be a creator in the immediate future. Then again, he could hardly blame the mech. “Y’kno, there’s a reason Lordy and I haven’t tried for a sparkling yet.” he said, setting to polishing each piece of his gun one last time.

“What, because he’s got a kingdom to rule and you’d pop something if you tried to carry?” Rodimus teased. Bumblebee swatted him on the shoulder with the polishing rag, ignoring the squawk of offense he elicited when it left a smear of blue tint.

“Beyond that.” he kept his vents as steady as he could, his field more open than he let it be around anyone but his conjunx. “I want to wait until I can be sure I won’t end up like _him_.” he clamped his plating down tight so it couldn’t ripple-flare in disgust. It had all seemed so normal, growing up. Failure was punished with pain, success rewarded with the gift of fuel, or solvent, or getting Hatchet to weld your plating back together instead of going around with taped-up armour and praying self-repair did the job, and you had to pick which one it was gonna be. That was just how things worked, for him and Roddy and every other bitlet who wandered in off the streets hungry enough to do the work asked of them.

“I-” Rodimus’s vocaliser choked off after that one hesitant glyph, and when Bumblebee looked over he found his brother with one hand rubbing the exposed protometal over his gestation tank.

“It’s just us here.” he reminded Rodimus, setting down the polish rag this time to reach out and touch his wrist. Rodimus could activate his buzzsaw right now and slice his fingers right off at the second servo, but Bumblebee was sure he wouldn’t.

“I don’t regret it.” Rodimus blurted, and Bumblebee’s optics widened behind his visor. “It’s- it’s crazy, and stupid, but I don’t regret what we did.” he lifted his helm, and Bumblebee’s spark casing felt too tight as optic contact was followed by a wash of desperation through Rodimus’s field, a silent plea for understanding. As if he of all mechs wouldn’t.

“Me either.” he slid his hand down to grasp Rodimus’s, signing calm in chiro as he filled his field with acceptance. Roddy had never quite grasped speaking hand, but at least he could read fields. “It could’ve been better for sure, could’ve been easier, less scarring.” he rolled his shoulder to make the joint pop halfway out of its socket, and Rodimus laughed as he mirrored the motion. That little punishment had taught them teamwork in getting out of it, if nothing else.

“But we made it.” he said after a few kliks of peaceful silence.

“We did.” Rodimus nodded, gripping his hand back tight and clumsily tracing out the glyph Trust with the tip of one finger. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if things had been different, I don’t know if we would’ve wound up where we are today if we weren’t _who_ we are-”

“Hey.” Bumblebee squeezed Rodimus’s hand tight, passing protective from his palm to his brother’s. “We’re here _despite_ him, not because of him. Don’t regret what we did to survive, but don’t you dare thank that slagheap for the best thing that ever happened to us.”

“I know.” Rodimus chuckled, and Bumblebee released his hand to go back to his gun. Fitting the pieces back on was as much mechanical memory as removing them, and he kept half an optic on Rodimus as he worked, gauging his expression and field.

“I can do better.” he said after a few kliks of near-silence. “I can _be_ better than he was.” he turned to look at Bumblebee again, his face this time softened by a fond smile and his EM field awash with determination. “ _We_ can be better.”

“Damn right.” Bumblebee snapped the last part back on his gun and subspaced it, along with the projector. He reached out and rested a hand next to Roddy’s, feeling the gentle radiant warmth of a working forge under his palm. “We’re still here, after all.”

“Yeah.” Rodimus nodded, and when Bumblebee stood he accepted the offered hand to help him to his feet. “We’re still here.”


End file.
